ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a model of ongoing support devised as a follow-up to long-term individual psychotherapy with a young woman diagnosed variously as borderline psychotic, on the autistic spectrum, severely emotionally disturbed, and learning-disabled. In many ways a diagnosis of Asperger's might have been a more helpful indication of her unusual mix of extreme oddness, hyper-sensitivity, and idiosyncratic intelligence. "Holly" had been referred with a view to psychotherapy by a consultant child psychiatrist who had known her for many years. The contact with Holly's parents, her social worker, and the care staff depends usefully on the telephone in addition to occasional meetings. Her parents had come to feel trust in Holly's therapist and to recover from some earlier rather devastating encounters with a range of mental health professionals, and they greatly valued their termly meetings to talk over Holly's progress.
